Storybook Hero
Mariana
Leaving so soon?” came my mother’s voice as I rounded the corner into the conjoined kitchen and living space.
Her fists were on her hips, a frayed and faded apron cinched around her waist. She was surveying Faren’s armor, his readiness for departure.
It was surreal, seeing him in my parents’ kitchen.
His posture was relaxed, his smile warm and charming.
His ability to walk into a room and immediately belong was a foreign concept to a veritable exile like me; even in the place I belonged most, it was Faren who seemed most at ease.
“I’d assumed we’d make haste,” Faren said, then glanced over his shoulder at me, still lurking by the banister. His eyes creased. “Ana usually favors an early start.”
“Not here,” Bard called. My brother was seated on the floor, leaning back against the settee that faced the hearth, his socked feet extended out toward the fire. “Here, she tends to linger.”
Faren’s attention swept over my rumpled clothes and general lack of preparedness—not for the first time this morning.
There was no judgement on his face, just his usual look of curiosity, like he was trying to figure me out.
Only this morning, the expression was warmer.
Softer. “Well, I’m in no hurry,” he declared finally, dropping his gear and scabbards by the front door.
“Wonderful.” My mother spun on a heel, busying herself with plates. “I’ve made breakfast. Let me just—”
“How can I help?” Faren asked.
The entire room seemed to inhale—a long, drawn-out pause. My father—seated in his usual cushioned chair by the window—lowered his book. My brother raised an eyebrow at me. My mother stopped short, her dark eyes sparkling. Oh, I would never hear the end of this.
“Handsome and helpful?” my mother said. “Where did you find him, Ana?”
“Picked him up like a tick from a field,” I mumbled.
A steaming teapot sat on the countertop, and I gravitated toward it. Poured myself a cup. Took a fortifying sip. I’d awoken barely ten minutes ago with the lingering disorientation of a deep sleep. My joints still felt stiff, limbs heavy.
I was not awake enough yet to dodge my family’s meaningful glances and incorrect assumptions.
Faren’s impossible-to-ignore presence wasn’t helping.
In all his finery, he made the kitchen feel smaller—but not in a bad way.
In fact, as he worked shoulder-to-shoulder with my mother, slicing her fresh-baked bread, he made the space feel full.
I really didn’t need such a quaint image of him in my head.
I shuffled over to my brother and plopped down, stretching my legs out same as him. Heat from the hearth licked over my socks, and I leaned into my baby brother’s arm, savoring the fleeting comfort of his closeness. Sometimes I forgot how starved for warmth I was until I visited home.
“Where is your long-suffering wife?” I asked Bard.
“Suffering upstairs by sleeping in,” he replied. “It’s hard work, growing a whole other person.”
“Especially if it has your big head.”
In answer, he stole my tea and took a long, slurping sip.
I swiveled toward my father. “Have Pete and Orna risen?”
“Not yet.” He set his book aside, accepting a plate from Faren with a relaxed nod. “Thank you, son.”
Son? Bard mouthed at me.
Our father was a congenial man, but his amiability toward a Mighty Knight was…unexpected. What had they talked about in the barn last night?
Hoping to curb any additional teasing, I elbowed Bard in the ribs.
“It’s a great kindness, you taking them in,” Faren said, delivering breakfast to me and my brother, next.
The plates were piled with my mother’s bread and butter, overcooked bacon (my favorite), and roasted vegetables.
As a touch magician, my favorite part of being home was the physical comfort—but the food was a close second.
I immediately shoved a slice of bacon into my mouth, crunching down on the crisp fat.
“We are grateful to have the means to help other homesteaders,” my mother said, settling into the chair opposite my father’s.
“Besides,” my father added, “we rarely use the old house.”
Bypassing any proper seating, Faren lowered himself to the floor on the other side of Bard with a metallic clatter. “The old house?”
“It’s a guest cottage, now,” my mother explained, “but it used to be the main house, before we built this.”
Faren glanced over his shoulder, out the window, in the direction of my childhood home. Standing just on the other side of the herb garden, the two-room structure appeared shabby and small. “And here I was imagining a young Mariana toddling across these floors,” Faren said.
“It’s because of Mariana that we were able to build this,” my mother said, not realizing what she’d just divulged to the Mighty Knight.
That the rug upon which we sat, the floorboards underneath, rested upon a foundation built by the Maiden Morta Killer.
That my parents’ comfort had been bought by incentives paid out by the Lord.
My parents knew that my compliance was periodically rewarded—but how I earned their security remained a mystery to them, a requirement of my grim charge.
“It’s because of Mariana that we’re still here at all,” my father added around a bite of bread.
Faren’s realization rested heavily upon me. Not interested in his pity, I concerned myself with rearranging the vegetables on my plate.
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least,” Faren said after a moment.
I could feel his gaze on me, holding firm, but I refused to look up—not just because the conversation made me feel exposed, but because the last thing I needed was for my mother to catch us making eye contact after he’d just complimented me.
“Do you live here full time?” Faren asked Bard, mercifully moving on.
My brother nodded around a big bite of vegetables. “With my wife and son.”
“It’s a blessing having them here,” my mother said.
“A blessing to my back,” my father put in. “I can’t handle farm work like I used to.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Bard said.
Sometimes I forgot that my brother was a grown man and not the imp he once was.
I poked his leg, and he poked me back, and I ignored how Faren observed the exchange.
My family were the only ones with whom I felt comfortable being touched, not just because I trusted them, but because they knew how: firm contact, no lingering.
Now that Faren knew I was a touch magician, him witnessing my physical exchanges felt like letting him in on a secret of some kind.
A new piece of myself he wasn’t supposed to see.
“Mariana also mentioned a sister,” Faren went on. “Rosie. Does she live here, too?”
“She married a nice Lothgaimian man,” my mother said. “She lives there, now.”
Faren’s eyes lit up. “Whereabouts?”
“Henborrow.”
Faren clapped his hands. “My family estate is not far from there. Beautiful countryside.”
“I thought I heard a Lothgaimian lilt to your voice.” My mother cast me a meaningful glance, as if to say, You, too, could marry a nice Lothgaimian man.
I wedged a massive bite of bread into my mouth.
“What brought you to Fenrir?” my father asked.
In my periphery, Faren shrugged his big shoulders. “I wanted to make a name for myself.”
That caught my attention; I looked up, surprised to see that there was a slight tension beside his eyes.
Wistful, but also slightly…bitter. “As the second son in a prominent family, with close ties to Lothgaimian nobility, my family name preceded me,” he explained.
“I saw no other way to be my own man than to leave Lothgaim, and Fenrir seemed as good a place as any.” He dipped his chin, and a lock of hair fell across his forehead.
“Much like your daughter, my mother was from here and married a nice Lothgaimian man.” A thoughtful smile.
“Her connection to Fenrir was part of my reasoning, I suppose. It felt distant enough to set myself apart, but not too disconnected from my heritage.”
“A second son,” my mother said. “Do you have a big family?”
His smile brightened. “A brother and four sisters.”
“Four sisters? Fates,” Bard swore. “Are any of them like Mariana?”
Faren’s low voice scraped at my nerves as he said, “No one is like Mariana.”
I felt suddenly as if I’d walked into a clothesline.
My mother made a small sound in the back of her throat, halfway between a squeak and a sigh.
I finally met Faren’s eyes, scowling—but his expression wasn’t one of mischief.
With his hair still falling across his face, he appeared boyish, bashful, as if he’d just said something he hadn’t meant to admit aloud.
It almost made me miss the tremor of footsteps, a vibration that traveled through the floorboards, the rug, and into the backs of my thighs. “Good morning, everyone,” came a familiar, feminine voice.
Celia, my sister-in-law, stood at the base of the staircase.
She wore a sky-blue nightdress and a cobalt shawl, the cool tones in perfect contrast to her curly red hair.
She gripped the banister with one hand and cradled her prominent baby bump with the other.
How my grimy brother had managed to ensnare a goddess like Celia, I’d never know.
I set my plate aside and sprung to my feet, unable to hide my joy. “Celia.”
“Mariana,” she replied, meeting me with a firm hug. Her massive belly pressed against my ribs, making the remaining bruises ache—but I barely noticed as my touch magic felt the faintest flutter of the baby stirring inside. My heart squeezed, and I held her tighter.
When she pulled back, I made a show of observing her. “You’re as big as a horse.”
She pulled a face, nose wrinkling. “And you smell like one.”
We stared at one another for two seconds, three, before descending into laughter. Our friendship had always been expressed through teasing. Arm in arm, we wandered back toward the living space—only for Celia to halt at the sight of the Mighty Knight lounging beside her husband.